Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 09, 2012

Islam conquers European football

From Soeren Kern at The Gatestone Institute:

The top-ranked football team in Spain, Real Madrid, has removed a Christian cross from its official logo as a way to strengthen its fan base among Muslims in Europe and the Middle East.

According to Spain's top sports newspaper, Marca, the change was made to "avoid any form of confusion or misinterpretation in a region where the majority of the population is Muslim."

Real Madrid says its decision to remove the cross from its logo is simply a cost of doing business in a globalized world. But critics say the move represents yet another erosion of European culture and tradition in the face of encroaching Islam.

The cross controversy comes as Real Madrid begins to build a $1 billion sports tourist resort in the United Arab Emirates. The foundation stone for the 50 hectare Real Madrid Resort Island was laid in the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah on March 29; the complex is scheduled to open in January 2015.

Real Madrid says its resort island will be the first theme park on an artificial island to combine tourism and sports, and it will be the first recreational tourism complex built under the Real Madrid trademark. The complex will include a 450-room luxury hotel, luxury villas, a sporting harbor, and the world's first-ever football stadium that is open to the sea.

According to Real Madrid, "This is a decisive and strategic step that will enhance the strength of this institution in the Middle East and Asia, a key region in which the passion for this club has been apparent. Real Madrid and the Government of Ras al-Khaimah want to transmit the passion of Real Madrid and what it means throughout the world."

As part of the agreement, however, the ruler of Ras al-Khaimah, Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr al Qasimi, required Real Madrid to remove the cross from the crown on its logo for all promotional materials related to the resort island. The president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez, dutifully complied.

Old and new logos

The cross was first to Real Madrid's logo in 1920, when King Alfonso XIII granted the club his royal patronage. The word Real is Spanish for royal, and the cross still forms an integral part of the coat of arms of the King of Spain.

The article goes on to show that this is not the first time a cross was removed from a football logo to soothe Muslim sensibilities; FC Barcelona's shirts sold in Muslim countries are similarly edited so as not to offend their Muslim fans:

(h/t @challahhuakbar)

Kuwaiti cleric: Jews are Muslims' biggest enemy; Muslims will always fight any Jewish state

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Kuwaiti cleric Tareq Sweidan, manager of Al-Resala TV, which aired on Al-Quds TV on March 26, 2012.
Tareq Sweidan : I studied at the Petroleum Department at the University of Oklahoma, and our dean, who was a Christian American, retired. The man they brought to replace him was completely incompetent. I went to the former dean, Dr. Guerrero, and asked him: "What made them choose Dr. Sylvester as the new dean, even though he is unworthy of this?" I was still a student back then. He laughed and said: "You noticed?" I said: "Of course. Anybody with eyes in his head would notice." He said: "It's because he is a Freemason." This Guerrero began to curse the Jews and the Freemasons, saying that they control everything.
This is just a little story from Oklahoma in the middle of America. Now think what happens in New York or California, the centers of power.
[...]
When I was still in the US, we decided to try to influence a member of Congress, who seemed to be somewhat sympathetic towards us. He was campaigning in the elections, and we said: "Let us Muslims vote and raise funds for him. We raised 300,000 dollars and went to give it to him, saying: "Take this money, we support you, and you will support us politically." He refused. We asked why, and he said: "The Jews were here yesterday and gave me 300 million."
[...]
I have no hope that the West will change its positions. I can change the positions of some Westerners, but at the end of the day, power lies with the politicians, who are influenced by two things and two things only: money and the media, both of which are controlled by the Jews.
So we should make the effort, but we must not rely on Western aid or on Western popular sympathy. These are minor things. We rely upon Allah and then upon our armed resistance in obtaining our rights.
[...]
I say to the Arabs today: "Please do not negotiate. You are weak and would end up making unnecessary concessions. If you are incapable of regaining the holy city [of Jerusalem], I beg you to leave it occupied. A generation will come that will liberate it for us." We do not want negotiations or compromises while in a state of weakness, because we would end up relinquishing what the strong would not give up.
[...]
Interviewer : The principle of compromise states that we should get whatever we can. Its supporters say: Let's accept this, so that Palestine is not lost in its entirety. Some Arab regimes have even begun to lament [their objection to] the Partition Plan. In order not to repeat the same mistake, they say, let's take what is being offered...
Tareq Sweidan : This is a defeatist mentality, adopted by the weak. Let me say something to you, to the viewers, and to the Palestinians: This land is not yours. Palestine, the Holy Land - and especially Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque - does not belong to the Palestinians. It belongs to the entire Islamic nation. You have no right to relinquish or divide it. By Allah, even if all the Palestinians accept a compromise and hand over Jerusalem, we will not agree to that. Even if you become weak and surrender, we will not weaken. We will continue to wage resistance until we liberate it. These are our holy places. This is the Islamic mentality as I understand it.
[...]
I'm from Kuwait, but my first and foremost cause in this world is that of Palestine and Jerusalem. Palestine and Jerusalem come before Kuwait for me, because I'm a Muslim, and I believe in my holy places. A nation that relinquishes its holy places becomes worthless. Even if all the Palestinians relinquish it, the Islamic nation will not.
[...]
In a nutshell, my strategy is as follows: We must consolidate the position of the Palestinians within Palestine as much as possible. We must support the armed resistance in Gaza, and if possible, we must spread it to the West Bank, and even to Palestine [within the 1948 borders]. If we can, we should do that. Third, the countries bordering [Israel] must be serious in their resistance to the Zionist entity. Thanks to Allah, there are signs of this. Fourth, this must be a mission for the entire Islamic nation. Everyone should support this cause. The most dangerous thing facing the Muslims is not the dictatorships. The absolutely most dangerous thing is the Jews. They are the most dangerous. They are the greatest enemy.
[...]

It looks like Sweidan can't even tell the truth about his alma mater, which appears to be the University of Tulsa. The chances that Dr. Guerrero cursed the Jews and Freemasons are about the same as that a congressional candidate in Oklahoma received a $300 million donation from Jews.

St. Helena Chapel in Jerusalem bans Egyptian Copts from praying

I noted last week that for the first time, hundreds of Egyptian Copts were flocking to Jerusalem to celebrate Easter, after Coptic Pope Shenouda III - who was opposed to such pilgrimages - died.

The church stated at the time that "the Church is a religious institution that does not control the freedom of individuals does not impose laws on them."

Those pilgrims were denied access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

From Al Ahram:

The St Helena Chapel, the Egyptian [Coptic] part of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulcher, has denied entry to Egyptian Christians who sought to celebrate Easter there.

Defying a ban by the late Pope Shenouda III, more than one hundred Egyptian Copts flew to Jerusalem to visit landmarks in the holy land.

“We neither allowed them to pray nor to break their fast. That infuriated them to the extent that some of them wanted to fight us,” Priest Mesaael told the Egyptian state-run news agency MENA.

“The instructions of the late Pope Shenouda are still valid, we have to respect them even more than we did when he was alive.”

This is all in context of a larger dispute in the Arab world on whether visiting Jerusalem is a form of normalizing relations with Israel. Mahmoud Abbas wants Arabs to visit but he is opposed by many clerics including the late Pope Shenouda, popular Qatar-based preacher Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi and Sheikh Sabri, head of the Islamic Council of Jerusalem.

Notably, Crown Prince Hashim of Jordan visited the Al Aqsa Mosque last week.

Want to see provocative pictures?

These parents and children taking an outing are, according to some, the most dangerous people on the planet.

According to the Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation, they are among the "settlers" who "stormed" the Temple Mount and "desecrated" it on Sunday, doing "provocative Talmudic rituals."

Some of the desecrators were even seen singing and dancing.

Outrageous, I know.

Mike Wallace interviews Abba Eban, 1958

After CBS' Mike Wallace died Sunday, it is illuminating to see this combative 1958 interview he held with Abba Eban.

Wallace pressed Eban about Israel's "aggression" in 1948 and demanded how Israel could justify holding onto the 1949 armistice lines!

Many people today believe that those 1949 armistice lines were considered "international borders." They were nothing of the sort, and this interview shows where Israel was reminded over and over again at the time that those armistice lines were temporary and fragile.

It is also instructive to see how Israel's critics were saying then that Israel could not possibly survive economically, mirroring arguments that were made before Israel was born and those made years after this interview. Israel is still here, those critics are not.

Wallace also echoes the Walt and Mearsheimer argument that US friendship towards Israel was at too high a cost compared to what it could lose from the Arab world, showing again that the constant kerfuffles created by Israel's critics are hardly original.

Finally, Wallace quotes a Jewish anti-Zionist, reform rabbi Elmer Berger, echoing the charges made today ("Israel-Firsters") that Israel demands loyalty from world Jewry at the expense of their own countries. It seems that even then Jewish critics of Israel gained much fame and fortune for their opinions among certain crowds - and yet they and their hate are soon forgotten, to be replaced by newer editions of the same old arguments. (Berger praised the Soviet Union's treatment of its Jews and supported the Arab side of the 1967 war.)

Eban does very well in this interview. Wallace comes across as being hostile towards Israel's very existence.

Yet another gas pipeline explosion in Egypt

From Reuters:

An explosion hit the Egyptian pipeline carrying gas to Israel and Jordan on Monday for 14th time since the uprising against President Hosni Mubarak began last year, security sources said.

The blast took place in the northern Sinai at the entrance of the Mediterranean coastal town of Al-Arish. Residents in the city told Reuters they had heard the sound of the explosion.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks on the installation that crosses the increasingly volatile Sinai Peninsula. Security in Sinai was relaxed after the fall of Mubarak in 2011 as the police presence thinned out across Egypt.

The pipeline has been shut since an explosion on February 5.

Do you think that the saboteurs care in the least that these explosions hurt their fellow Arabs in Jordan more than they hurt Israel?

Egypt promised to set up a new pipeline to Gaza to run its power plant in the next few months; I don't know if that pipeline would be affected by these repeated explosions as well, but my impression is that the explosions have been occurring on the Port Said-El Arish segment, which affects both Israeli and Jordanian gas. Which means that it would affect gas to Gaza as well.

In a couple of years Israel should be getting enough gas from the massive Mediterranean fields under its control, so we'll see then if Jordan and Syria ask for Israel to export gas to them!

Hamas: No elections this year, maybe next year, not our fault

A Hamas spokesman confirmed what everyone already knew - that planned elections for a unified Palestinian Arab government are not going to happen anytime soon.

Salah Bardawil, member of Hamas' political bureau, said that he does not see any elections happening this year, and he blamed Fatah for that. He claims that only a small percentage of the agreements between Hamas and Fatah in the Doha Declaration were implemented, that West Bank voters are in fear of voting according to their true feelings or to campaign for any non-Fatah candidate, that American and Israeli pressure are causing Fatah to drag its feet, that if Israel doesn't allow Jerusalem Arabs to vote than the voting cannot go forward, and a host of other excuses.

Absent from his list was the fact that Hamas has not yet allowed the elections office in Gaza to start doing its work in determining who can vote.

The reality is that neither Hamas nor Fatah are willing to take the chance that they will lose the power they have over Gaza and the West Bank, respectively. The entire idea of unity was an attempt to forestall popular uprisings against both parties, so they cooperated just enough to calm down their people.

Amazingly, so far their cynical fake cooperation has managed to do exactly that.

Chag Sameach!

I wish all of my Jewish readers a wonderful and meaningful Pesach. May we all celebrate next year in Jerusalem.

Also, for those who celebrate Easter, have a great holiday as well.

I will not be blogging until Sunday night or Monday.

Pre-Passover Snippet-dump

More links and things before the holiday:

Guy Bechor:

Today, when the Muslim Middle East is disintegrating into religions, ethnic groups, minorities and distinct regions, when the slaughter in Syria is merely intensifying (the number of fatalities is already nearing 10,000,) when Libya's militias are killing each other, Yemen is crumbling and Egypt is facing deep trouble, it turns out that relatively speaking, the Palestinian issue is the most stable in the Mideast.

Truth be told, that was always the case, yet for self-interested reasons the situation was distorted by various elements.

The Palestinians encountered another grave calamity: Israel's public opinion lost interest in them. For dozens of years, Israel's leftist camp turned the Palestinians into its defining issue. Yet suddenly the Left discovered that Israel moved on and that the issue is no longer on its agenda. When the Left also discovered that the Palestinians have no interest in peace or negotiations, just like Syria's Assad, it replaced the Palestinian agenda with a new one, premised on social issues like cottage cheese and the tent protest.

Reuters:

Some 2,350 Syrians fled across the border to Turkey from the region of Idlib within 24 hours, a Turkish official said on Thursday, more that double the highest previous one-day total.

Tablet:

The Jews of Malmö, a community of about 1,500 in a city of 300,000, are living through a new form of anti-Semitism. This kind does not stem from neo-Nazis or right-wing extremists—traditional perpetrators of European Jew-hatred—but has come to the city through immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East and is part of a larger, countrywide problem of failed integration. According to the 2011 census, one in 10 Malmö citizens comes from the Middle East and North Africa, and ethnic Swedes are no longer in the majority among 15-year-olds. In 2009, 60 hate crimes against Jews were reported in Malmö, ranging from hate speech to assault. The city’s Chicago-born Chabad rabbi, Shneur Kesselman, estimates that he alone has been the victim of 100 incidents during his few years in the city. A dozen families have already left Malmö for Stockholm, Israel, or the United States because of anti-Semitism, according to community leaders.

If only this were the whole problem. But Malmö’s mayor of 17 years, Ilmar Reepalu, has “Tourettes syndrome with respect to Jews,” according to Kvällsposten, a Swedish newspaper. Last week, Reepalu, a Social Democrat, made headlines across the country after I published an interview with him in which he said that Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigrant party with its roots in the Swedish neo-Nazi movement, had “infiltrated” Malmö’s Jewish community in order to turn it against Muslims. On Monday, he was publicly reprimanded by the head of his party.

Reeplau has promised that he is no anti-Semite, but this is far from the first time that he has put his foot in his mouth on the subject of Jews.

Michael Oren:

Is Israeli democracy truly in jeopardy? Are basic liberties and gender equality -- the cornerstones of an open society -- imperiled? Will Israel retain its character as both a Jewish and a democratic state -- a redoubt of stability in the Middle East and of shared values with the United States?

These questions will be examined in depth, citing comparative, historical, and contemporary examples. The answers will show that, in the face of innumerable obstacles, Israeli democracy remains remarkable, resilient, and stable.

CAMERA: A Sad But Incomplete Story

A remarkable shadow theatre retelling of the Exodus I had missed last year:

BBC:

Prince Nawaf bin Faisal said his body was "not endorsing any female participation at the moment."

Sue Tibballs, chief executive of the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation, said the Saudi stance was unacceptable.

"We would expect the International Olympic Committee to exclude Saudi Arabia," she said.

Here's a 1907 Haggadah with lots of Hebrew commentary, one of the better ones I've seen.

(h/t Ian)

For the first time, Egyptian Copts flock to Jerusalem for Easter

From Egypt Independent:

Aarsena Air Company in Egypt launched Friday airlifts between Egypt and Israel to transfer hundreds of Egyptian Coptic pilgrims to Christian landmarks in Jerusalem for the first time. The move comes in the wake of the death of Pope Shenouda III, who banned pilgrimages to Jerusalem due to the Israeli occupation.

The airlift is the first of its kind to transport Egyptians to Israel since the signing of the peace treaty between the two countries in 1979. One or two flights will depart daily on an aircraft with 104 seats, said Cairo International Airport officials.

The sources added that two flights bound for Jerusalem left Friday carrying 104 passengers each and that no obstacles faced them.

The Coptic passengers are scheduled to spend several days sightseeing at Christian landmarks in Jerusalem, in the context of celebrating Easter on 15 April.

Pope Shenouda III banned Coptic travel to the city of Jerusalem, and said more than once: “The Copts will not travel to Jerusalem, except in the company of their fellow Muslims.”

In reaction, Coptic leaders in Europe reaffirmed their opposition to any Copts traveling on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, saying that this was a church-wide decision, not a personal ban by Pope Shenouda III.

It looks like there was a lot of pent-up desire by Egyptian Copts to visit anyway.

In wake of reports of the first plane-loads of pilgrims Thursday, Coptic officials said that "the Church is a religious institution that does not control the freedom of individuals does not impose laws on them." The Deputy Catholic Patriarch of the Catholic Church likewise said that the church does not interfere in the affairs of individuals, it is an institution of worship and can not track the movement of people and does not interfere in individual affairs.

It looks like Aarsena Air was set up to do only a shuttle between Egypt and Israel for the pilgrims.

Fisking part of "The New American Haggadah" (guest post)

I was sent this, and it looks right on target:

Devoted readers of the Forward and other progressive Jews are abuzz with the NEW AMERICAN HAGGADAH, edited by Jonathan Safran Foer and newly (and literally) translated by Nathan Englander. In his ferocious review of Leon Wieseltier takes a swipe at Lemony Snicket’s contribution entitled “Playground,” apparently addressed to the children (or the child in us).

But not even this degree of intellectual lightness can justify the lame improv called “Playground” by the American Jewish writer who calls himself Lemony Snicket. If there is anything innovative about the New American Haggadah, it is the introduction into the Passover literature of this voice—puerile, trivializing, supercilious, calculatingly quirky, painfully unhilarious—a punk in a yarmulke. Here, for example, is his tiresome gloss on the Four Sons:

In addition to all the throw-away dismissals Wieseltier offers, there are still greater insights to be gleaned from this passage about the mind-set of the folks who put this Haggadah together.

Some scholars believe there are four kinds of parents as well.

Scholars is presumably the modern replacement of rabbinic authorities. Fair enough. People learned in the tradition, who take a more secularized approach to the literature, at once knowledgeable and freed from dogmas about “Torah from Sinai”… certainly worth consideration, if not credence. And the notion that one might do an inversion of the 4 children is actually very promising… if done with some depth and wisdom.

Don’t hold your breath.

The Wise Parent is an utter bore. “Listen closely, because you are younger than I am,” says the Wise Parent, “and I will go on and on about Jewish history, based on some foggy memories of my own religious upbringing, as well as an article in a Jewish journal I have recently skimmed.” The Wise Parent must be faced with a small smile of dim interest.

Wow! Given what we know is coming (wicked, simple and doesn’t know to ask), this is the best we’re going to get. What we have here described is not a wise parent, but a superficial fool who mistakes age for wisdom, who has nothing of substance to say but bullshits his way through the situation on the basis of stuff he’s skimmed. In other words, he’s the epitome of the narcissistic secular Jew who had a minimal Jewish education which he maintains by reading “scholars” in journals, and expects to have the respect of his children. Not to get personal here, but could this me Lemony’s dad? And this is the best Lemony can imagine from parents? He’s like Peter Pan, eternally adolescent.

The Wicked Parent tries to cram the story of our liberation into a set of narrow opinions about the world. “The Lord led us out of Egypt,” the Wicked Parent says, “which is why I support a bloodthirsty foreign policy and am tired of certain types of people causing problems.” The Wicked Parent should be told in a firm voice, “With a strong hand God rescued the Jews from bondage, but it was my own clumsy hand that spilled hot soup in your lap.”

Wow again. So the bad parent is the “conservative,” the “hawk” who, having learned the lesson of the Holocaust, does not think that “war is not the answer.” And Lemony, who knows better than the older generation because… because, well he’s sure that if all Jews were liberals and progressives like himself, then there would be no anti-Semitism, has nothing but contempt for the bloodthirsty fool. As for the reference to “tired of certain types causing trouble,” is that a reference to freethinkers (like Lemony?), or to the Alice Rothschilds and Norman Finkelsteins of the world who compare Israel to the Nazis?

The Simple Parent does not grasp the concept of freedom. “There will be no macaroons until you eat all your brisket,” says the Simple Parent, at a dinner honoring the liberation of oppressed peoples. “Also, stop slouching at the table.” In answer to such statements, the Wise Child will roll his eyes in the direction of the ceiling and declare, “Let my people go!”

Now here’s an interesting fumble: mistaking license for freedom. As everyone from the rabbis to Erich Fromm have pointed out, there is no real freedom without discipline, and anyone who thinks that instilling discipline is restricting freedom has no real understanding. Here Lemony plays the role of the single uncle who encourages the kids to be wild, to show contempt for parents, to “let it all hang out.” Why not just say “caca doodoo.” Training the “rebels” of the next generation? Or the self-indulgent narcissists?

The Parent Who Is Unable to Inquire has had too much wine, and should be excused from the table.

Four of a kind – all the parents are contemptible. What a pathetic effort to mirror the Haggadah. And why did Safran Foer include this in his collection? Why didn’t he send it back to Lemony for a major rewrite? Notes Wieseltier:

Is this the cry of a generation? A pitch for Zach Galifianakis? There is something sad about such a fear of adulthood. It is an Egypt of its own.

It’s called never-never land. And if there were any self-condemning statement of a generation raised by largely secular parents who, met with a “generation gap” of their own, produced a host of self-satisfied pygmies, this is it.

If the Haggadah is a monument to memory in all its forms and the chain of transmission from generation to generation, this commentary is a monument to trivialization and breaking that chain.

Hopefully serious and playful liberals/progressives can do a lot better than this.

Morning links

Challah Hu Akbar has done some great work looking at a fake human rights organization set up by the Palestinian Authority in Geneva.

He also has nice photos of Islamic Jihad child abuse.

There was an assassination attempt against a leading anti-Hezbollah Lebanese politician.

I didn't cover the Günter Grass kerfuffle, but you can read about it here. An op-ed here.

Khaled Abu Toameh on the crime of "extending tongues" in Jordan and under the PA.

"Hezbollah has 300 operatives in NYC"

Egypt's top archaeologist who called himself "Indiana Jones" faces charges. He's a real anti-semite.

Taking photos in Jordan, even for a tourist guidebook, is not a smart idea - if you have an Israeli passport.

Everyone has seen Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 classic movie The Ten Commandments. But how many have seen his 1923 silent movie version? Here's the splitting of the sea, very impressive for 1923!

You can see the entire film here. Too bad it glosses over nine of the ten plagues.

Here's the first New York Times (headlined) article about Passover, from 1869:

(h/t Yoel, Samson, Yid With Lid)

Fatah students damage model of Al Aqsa

During the student elections at Bir Zeit University this week, students who support Hamas would carry around a model of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque at their rallies.

The election was hard fought and there is a lot of bad blood between the two parties. Hamas media are now publishing photos of damage done to at least one of these models, allegedly by Fatah students:

Will there be a fatwa calling for a jihad against Fatah? You never know.

Israeli government and PLO agree: Jews cannot buy property in Hebron (updated)

From AFP:

A Palestinian man suspected of mediating in the contested sale of a house in Hebron to Jewish settlers has been detained, Palestinian security sources told AFP on Thursday.

Israeli security forces on Wednesday evicted a group of settlers from a house in the West Bank city, a day after they were ordered to leave the property.

Six settler families had moved into the property a week ago, claiming they had legally purchased one floor of the building from its Palestinian owners.

Palestinian sources in Hebron said the property belonged to the Abu Rajab family, some of whom live on the first floor of the building, and that it was possible that a member of the family had sold the second floor of the house.

But the buyer was not settlers, rather a Palestinian man originally from the Gaza Strip, who is suspected of acting as a middle-man for Jewish groups involved in buying Palestinian assets, the Palestinian security sources said.

This go-between, who worked for Palestinian national security in Ramallah before retiring, was detained earlier this week by Palestinian security forces, and was being held in Ramallah, the sources said.

They added that the member of the Abu Rajab family believed to have sold the asset to the middle-man had "escaped to Israel."

The Jewish Press has more detail:

At a press conference outside Machpelah House which had been evacuated Wednesday in Hebron, Shlomo Levinger and attorney Doron Nir-Tzvi told reporters that the purchase of Machpelah House had been in the making for some three years. The tenants had planned to patiently await government approval for their purchase of the house from a local Arab.

But the arrest of several Arabs by the Palestinian Authority on suspicion of selling real estate to the Jewish group – a crime which could be punished with death – changed the plan, and the group decided to move in despite the murky prospects of staying.

Knowing full well how hard it would be to establish residency in a newly purchased house—facing a hostile Israeli civil authority whose directive is to strictly limit the growth of the city’s Jewish community, the group of buyers was moving slowly and quietly, through intermediaries and straw men, forever remaining below the radar for three years.

At the press conference, Levinger said they paid four times the value of the house, which has been estimated at around $250 thousand. Earlier in the day, when the Jewish Press asked Levinger to confirm a rumor that they paid half a million dollars for the house, he said, “I wish it would have been that amount.”

The money for the purchase came from donations of Jews from Israel and abroad. “Every week we would travel to meetings in private homes, collecting one shekel after another,” Levinger said. “There were times when we came back with only a few single shekels, other times we’d pick up thousands. We spent days and nights collecting this money, faithfully and lovingly.

“Once the money had been collected, we embarked on the purchase deal. It was a Sysiphian labor. We knew that the Attorney General’s office would be looking everywhere for possible holes in the deal.”

According to Doron Nir-Tzvi, in Judea and Samaria, real estate deals are conducted in an anachronistic fashion, whereby a deal must first be completed before the buyers are permitted to apply for government approval (Heter Iskah). Therefore, once every last T was crossed and I dotted, the buyers planned to wait patiently for their deal to go through.

Sources in the Civil Administration were telling them they couldn’t find faults with the deal, that despite themselves they would end up having to approve it.

But then the PA arrested both straw men who had been carrying out different part of the bargain, followed by the jailing of their family members as well.

At this point, Levinger et al felt that their only recourse was to take possession of the property, or risk losing the deal altogether.

Both Levinger and Nir-Tzvi expressed concern for the jailed Palestinians. Levinger told the Jewish Press earlier that he was urging the Israeli government to demand their release of the Palestinian Authority.

It looks like no one is disputing that a sale occurred and it was legal. The Jews in Hebron say they have full documentation and video of the transaction.

But there are places in the world that Jews are not allowed to buy real estate because they are Jews. For example, Jordan, Saudi Arabia - and the ancient Jewish holy city of Hebron.

UPDATE: From My Right Word's Yisrael Medad in the comments:

I'm going to be an apikores here (while opposing the policy, of course) but to be fair. There is a right to purchase property and there is the right (and privilege) to reside in that property. As far as I know, what the GOI has done, deplorable, yes, is to act to prevent Jews from dwelling in the house that was purchased. The house is in H2. In fact, in last Friday's Haaretz, May 29, in other words 6 full days before the eviction, it was made clear in print that a special permission needed to be obtained from the Defense Ministry. In other words, what Haaretz and Peace Now knew, Shlomo Levinger knew.

The Elder of Ziyon Haggadah still available for free download!

In 2009, I made a Haggadah using various sources from the Internet, with a religious Zionist theme. Since then a couple of thousand people have downloaded it and many used it for their sedarim.

It is suitable for printing. (I suppose it might work well on an iPad, but I don't recommend using it as an e-book for the seder. Especially around the wine.)

Every year I think I'm going to edit it and make it into a real Haggadah for purchase, and every year I'm too busy. Or lazy.

So you can still use it for free!

It is available here.

Passover greetings from the IDF and the Israeli Navy

First, a fairly standard but nice video from the IDF:

But I like this Israeli Navy photo better!

(h/t Israel Embassy Twitter and Ian)

PA Mufti denies there was ever a Jewish Temple!

From the ever-vigilant Palestinian Media Watch (not yet on their site):

PA Mufti Muhammad Hussein on PA TV News:

"They [Jews] want to say or suggest that this place (Temple Mount) was once, according to their claim, a Temple. However, in truth, there never was a Temple in any period, nor was there, at any time, any place of worship for the Jews or others at the Al-Aqsa Mosque site (built on the Temple Mount, 705 CE)."
[PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 5, 2012]

So where exactly did Mohammed tether his magical flying horse again? Ah, the wall of the Farthest Mosque that had not yet been built.

By the way, buried in the Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics website, we see a timeline of Jerusalem history that includes:

20 AD

Herod allows the return of the Jews and the building of the temple.

The date is obviously wrong, but it still contradicts the Mufti.

So does this PA tourism site:

Macdoni Alexander : The country was under the Persian regime, until Alexander conquered it in 332 B.C. Domination over Orshaleem, fluctuated at the time of his successors; The Batalma and the Sloqs. Population were influenced at the time of Heilinsity with the Greek civilization. The Sloqi king, Antiokhos, the fourth, in (165) B.C. destroyed the Temple and compelled the Jews to convert into Greek idolatry. That resulted in the flare up of the Macabian revolution, and the Jews won the independence of Orshaleem under The Hasmonians regime from 135 B.C to 76 B.c.

These will get scrubbed soon, no doubt.

(h/t Andreas)

Lies about Christian access to Jerusalem during Holy Week

From WaPo:

Because of travel restrictions in past years, the vast majority of Christians living in the West Bank have been stopped at checkpoints and prevented from attending one of the most important religious services of the year. Israeli authorities require permits for entering Jerusalem. Local Christians estimate that only 2,000 — 3,000 permits are provided, despite the overwhelming desire among the 50,000 Palestinian Christians to travel from the West Bank and Gaza for the Easter week celebrations in Jerusalem.

Those who make it across checkpoints and into Israel are still barricaded by numerous walls and other security obstructions. As a result, even many who have permits are unable to make it to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 2010, a Palestinian colleague of mine at World Vision, who had warm memories as a child of the Holy Fire service, was able to return to the Holy Sepulchre. She described the scene for those able to gain entrance to the church: “The crowd, striving to stay joyful, could still feel the change of what Easter had now become and the dark cloud of checkpoints, police forces, and denial of entry that had obscured the joy of this holiday.”

While the ancient Christian communities around Jerusalem await the miracle of the Holy Fire this week, I pray for another miracle — one that would give full religious freedom to the Christians in the West Bank and Gaza. Holy Week has long been a time of pilgrimage to Jerusalem; Christians have worshiped there since the birth of the church, and these sites are a core aspect of the devotion of Palestinian believers.

From AFP:

Christian Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza need an entry permit, generally freely granted by the Israeli authorities, to attend religious festivals in Jerusalem.

From Times of Israel:

Israel’s ambassador to the United States on Thursday denounced as “libelous” an article that appeared in The Washington Post which claimed that Israel prevents “the vast majority of Christians living in the West Bank” from entering Jerusalem to attend Easter holy week ceremonies.

“It’s a libelous article,” Ambassador Michael Oren said of the piece.

“The army and security services have created a situation where virtually any Christian in the West Bank can visit the Holy Places in Jerusalem on Good Friday and Easter.” He estimated that some 20,000 entry permits had been issued this year.

Officials said only West Bank Christians suspected of posing a security risk were denied permits. They said Israel also annually issues hundreds of permits for the diminishing Christian community in Hamas-controlled Gaza to come to Jerusalem at Easter.

History repeats itself. See my piece from 2010 disproving a Reuters article claiming that the number of Christians visiting Jerusalem during Holy Week has plummeted since Israel controlled Jerusalem. In reality, it has gone way, way up. And that was when Israel only gave out 10,000 permits for Palestinian Christians - half the number given out this year.

And you may want to read my related 2010 article that destroys a lie about access to holy places in Jerusalem under Jordanian rule that was propagated by an Arab who is in no way an extremist - but that doesn't make him less of a liar.